How Our Individuality Shapes How We Dream

A fascinating aspect of dreams is how intricately our dream world is tied to our individuality. This article aims to understand how our individual psychological traits mold our dreamscapes.

The Influence of Psychological Factors on Dreams

It is a well-accepted hypothesis that our inherent personality traits modulate how we experience our waking life. However, the role of our individual personality traits in modulating our dream architecture remains in the shadows.

The inherent personality traits that play a crucial role in determining the themes and emotional undertones of our dreams can be understood across the Big Five and Myers-Briggs dimensions.

Personality Traits and Their Impact on Dream Content

Extraversion vs. Introversion

Extroverts, defined by their propensity to direct their attention to the outer world and characterized by their outgoingness and sociability, tend to experience dreams in a direct relationship with the external environment. Extroverted dreamers experience more physical interactions and positive emotions in their dreams, as stated in the International Journal of Dream Research.

On the other side of the personality spectrum, introverts, defined by their propensity to focus their attention inward and characterized by their reservedness and introspectiveness, adopt a more contemplative approach towards the symbolic content of their dreams. According to a research paper developed by South China University students, introverted people experience a passive emotional tone and greater emotional intensity in their dreams. Introverts also tend to be more distressed during nightmares.

Neuroticism and Anxiety

As researched by the British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, individuals with high degrees of neuroticism, characterized by an inclination to feel and construct negative emotions, are, on average, more affected by how they feel before sleeping than people with lower neuroticism. Their anxiety felt in the presleep stage directly influences the content of their dreams. Dreamers with high neuroticism tend to associate the unpleasant elements of dreams as bizarre, exciting, personally significant, and related to past events or envisioned future events.

In contrast, dreamers with lower levels of neuroticism tend to be more present, in the "here and now" of their dreams.

Openness to Experience

Individuals with high openness, characterized by their propensity to open themselves to new experiences, are better able to recall what happened in their dream because they do not make a clear distinction between the content of their dreams and their waking life reality. Highly open individuals tend to experience vivid and intense imaginative scenarios, which result in longer, more emotional, interactive dreams.

Individuals with lower openness establish a more pronounced separation between their dream world and their waking life. Their dream content tends to be more stable and close to normality than individuals with high openness.

Intuition and Sensation

Intuitive individuals, characterized by a strong inclination to focus on recognizing and predicting patterns, experience their dreams more metaphorically. The dream scenarios experienced by intuitives are more metaphorically related to their waking life than those experienced by individuals with lower intuition. Intuitive dreamers experience a strong sense of continuity between waking life and dream content through these metaphorical representations, as the symbolic content transcends the literal and resonates with the deeper aspects of their waking life.

In contrast, sensing individuals, characterized by their propensity to rely on their senses—such as sight, smell, touch, and taste—to approach their environment, experience their dreams in a more literal manner. The dream scenarios of sensing individuals are often direct reflections of their waking experiences, emphasizing concrete details and sensory impressions. This results in a more immediate and tangible connection between their waking life and dream content, with less emphasis on metaphorical or symbolic interpretations.

The Importance of Individualized Dream Interpretation

In this article, we discussed how the various dimensions of personality, conceptualized through those of Myers-Briggs and the MBTI, are at the very source of the content experienced in dreams. So the next time you think about your dreams, it would be essential to take into account your own individuality in order to understand what they could symbolize. If you ever want to interpret in a completely personalized way, it is essential to use a specialized tool that considers the nuances of your individuality, like the Mirror: Dream Journal, or to consult a professional therapist.